Abstract
This was a decent production hamstrung by its staging. The small studio at the Southwark Playhouse was configured with seating on three sides, leaving a central performance space with straightforward entries upstage left and upstage right. We were close to the action and the company did well to address spectators on all three sides but in spite of lucid storytelling and some compelling performances, this was a poorly staged production, hampered by the presence, throughout, of a large conference table.
Sorcha Corcoran's design had positioned an oblong table down the centre of the space, on top of which were three old-fashioned dial telephones and two banker's lamps complete with shades of green glass. The stage was set for an episode of Succession or some high-octane Mafiosi godfathers’ gathering. Stainless steel cantilevered chairs were positioned around the table to complete the sense of a powerful boardroom. While much of The Changeling takes place in the public spaces of Valmandero's castle, and while there is some aggressive horse-trading between Beatrice-Joanna's suitors, their relatives and her father (here, mother, played by Emma Wilkinson Wright), not all the play is suited to this setting and, indeed, some of the more intimate head-to-heads appeared curiously distant as speakers faced each other down the full length of the table top, separated like Putin at his absurd conference table from his various cronies, seated at the far end. Tête-à-têtes between Valmandera and Tomazo (Olsen Elezi) were split, as was the more threatening confrontation between Tomazo and De Flores. Conversations between them necessitated the audience turning heads as though attending a match at Wimbledon. Separated thus, there was no real sense of imminent violence and the explosive dangers of the play were effectively neutralised. Even the angry altercations of Alsemero (Mylo McDonald) and Beatrice-Joanna (Colette O’Rourke) were weakened by having them separated by the full length of the table. The whole production took on the impression of a rehearsal room with members of the company variously sitting around the table and running lines. In this way, the play's intense sexuality as well as its vehement outbursts were frequently muted by the awkwardness of the separation of its characters.
This was all the more disappointing since the adaptation involved the omission of all the madhouse scenes, thus concentrating its focus on the Machiavellian manoeuvring of the main plot and the various intrigues of De Flores and Beatrice-Joanna's ill-fated ‘bargain’. Dukes had, quite reasonably, cut all the asylum scenes although remnants of them remained in the upstage banner that read ‘Madhouse’ as well as the sporting of white doctors’ coats by certain members of the cast. The crediting of Mikko Juan, Kiera Murray, and Hamish Somers as ‘The Patients’ in the programme suggested this had been a last-minute cut.
Instead, The Patients seemed rather to constitute a singing troupe and there were several unwelcome sequences of them crooning verses from the text while others held up glitter balls; the play's asylum was here reconfigured as a cheesy nightclub, but for reasons that remained elusive. Elsewhere another Patient sang as the company patted oversized balloons among the audience but the purpose and meaning of this sequence was never apparent. As each character in the plot was killed – Alonzo, then Diaphanta (Henrietta Rhodes) – they sat blankly at the table holding a floating balloon on a ribbon, more of a hindrance than a help.
But in spite of the production's tendency to bewilder, there were some strong performances. Jamie O’Neill's unusually attractive De Flores, in tight suit trousers and a white vest resembled, in his trim physicality, Marlon Brando's Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire – and the same barely repressed sexual potency bubbled just under the surface. The effect of this allusion was to turn Beatrice-Joanna's vehement disgust into a perverse sort of flirtation and nicely to complicate the play. As the two of them met their ends, kneeling on the table, facing each other, they kissed – mutually.
This complex sexual dynamic was not well served by the staging, nor the casual, perhaps careless, ‘updating’ of the text. There were several expressions of disappointment – ‘Fuck it!’ – and De Flores's revelation that he’d murdered Tomazo's brother, which in the play is met with the infinitely complicated (because understated), ‘Ha! My brother's murderer!’ (5.3.167) – furious, resigned, melancholic, impotent? – became the rather bludgeoning ‘You cunt!’ But the play's original lines thankfully retained their shuddering strength: ‘A woman dipped in blood’ (3.4.126), ‘Y’are the deed's creature’ (137), and the rhetorical heft of the text far outweighed the whims of this sometimes very peculiar production.